Ng Bee Chin

I am mainly interested in issues related to individuals growing up in bilingual and multilingual contexts. My initial research interests are conceptual and semantic development in Chinese children through the study of classifiers. Working and living in Singapore has opened up many exciting research opportunities for multilingualism. More recently, I have been attracted to the ways in which bilinguals and multilinguals experience the world around them. Part of my research on language attitudes and identity focuses on the dynamic interaction between bilingual individuals and the social forces of a multilingual community.

I am currently working on several projects dealing with the intersection between social and cognitive aspects of bilingualism. The topics that engage me include:

1. Categorisation in bilinguals
2. The way emotion is encoded in bilinguals
3. Language attitude and identity in multilingual contexts
4. Language inequality and language endangerment in multilingual communities

Some of these projects have led to rewarding interdisciplinary collaborations with artists, designers, engineers and psychologists. For an examples of such interdisciplinary work, see the following abstract on a sound installation titled “Singapore Voices”. I am also involved in an interdisciplinary research cluster on Digital Intangible Heritage in Asia (DIHA).